Ki. Rajanarayanan

Rayangala Shri Krishna Raja Narayana Perumal Ramanujam Naicker (16 September 1923 – 17 May 2021), shortened to Ki. Rajanarayanan and popularly known by his Tamil initials as Ki. Ra., was an Indian Tamil language folklorist and acclaimed writer from Kovilpatti, in Tamil Nadu. Some of his popular works include Gopalla Grammam (transl. Gopalla Village), Gopallapurathu Makkal (transl. The People of Gopallapuram), Mayamaan (transl. The Magical Deer), and Nattuppura Kadhai Kalanjiyam (transl. Collection of Country Tales). He was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991.The Times of India called him the "Guardian of Tamil oral tradition". Rajanarayanan was born on 16 September 1923 in the village of Idaiseval near Kovilpatti in present-day Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu. He was the fifth child of Lakshmi Ammal and Shri Krishna Ramanujam. He suffered from poor health and was afflicted with tuberculosis at an early age. He dropped out of school in the seventh standard. He went on to become a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI), going to prison twice for his participation and support in the CPI-organised peasant rebellions between 1947 and 1951. He was also named in the Nellai Conspiracy Case of 1952, though the charges were later dropped. Rajanarayanan began his literary career at the age of 30 and wrote under his Tamil initials Ki. Ra. His first short story "Mayamaan" (transl. "The Magical Deer") was published in the magazine Saraswati in 1959. It was an immediate success. It was followed by many more short stories. Ki. Ra.'s stories were usually based in karisal kaadu (transl. scorched, drought stricken land) around his native region of Kovilpatti. The stories are usually centered around Karisal country's people, their lives, beliefs, struggles and folklore. Gopalla Grammam (transl. Gopalla Village) and its sequel Gopallapurathu Makkal (transl. The People of Gopallapuram) were among his most acclaimed novels, with the latter winning him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991. The novel deals with the stories of multiple people living in a village in south India before the arrival of the British. It involves the migration of the Telugu people escaping brutal kingdoms north of Tamil Nadu. These books were followed by Andaman Naicker.